


Dar(jee)ling

by hope_in_the_dark



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: First Kiss, Fluff, Gen, Getting Together, M/M, Misunderstandings, Mutual Pining, Pining, they're oblivious: the fic, this is about tea but it's also about Being In Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-05-17
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:07:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24230308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hope_in_the_dark/pseuds/hope_in_the_dark
Summary: Aziraphale realizes that Crowley is just as much in love with him as he is with Crowley. It takes a little while for him to arrive at this very obvious conclusion, and it all begins with a cup of tea.(For day 16 of the Good Omens Celebration - tea)
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 93
Kudos: 407
Collections: Good Omens Celebration





	Dar(jee)ling

**Author's Note:**

> This is just a short-ish canonverse oneshot I wrote because today's GOC prompt caught my eye. Buckle in for a bit of pining, a lot of cluelessness, and a very happy ending. And yes, I know, technically it's not "today" anymore, but it's close enough. Also, please ignore the pun in the title. My brain refused to come up with anything else. 
> 
> Just a note: I wrote this with the book versions in mind, but I blended in some references to the show as well. It's a hybrid!
> 
> Warnings: language

It all started with tea. 

Darjeeling tea, to be more specific. It was in a white mug, steaming as it sat on Crowley’s coffee table within Aziraphale’s reach. Going from the color and the smell, it had the right amount of milk and sugar in it, too. 

If Aziraphale had ever told Crowley how he liked his tea, none of this would have been worth noting. However, given that the number of conversations they’d had with the subject matter of tea was a straightforward zero, Aziraphale found this to be quite definitely noteworthy. 

Crowley slunk around to the other side of his sofa (which had been very uncomfortable until the night that the world didn’t end, when Aziraphale had assumed that it would be cozier than it appeared. Crowley and the sofa had both been surprised to find that Aziraphale was right) and sunk down onto it, his fingers wrapped around a black mug of coffee. 

Aziraphale stared at his tea. His taste in the stuff had varied over the millennia, and yet Crowley had known his current favorite without asking. Crowley had, apparently, been paying attention to things. He knew that Aziraphale liked a cup of tea in the middle of the afternoon, especially when it was raining. He’d put it in a white mug, something that Aziraphale was entirely certain had been black before Crowley had asked it to be otherwise. 

_ Bloody hell,  _ thought Aziraphale,  _ Crowley’s taking care of me. Crowley  _ **_cares_ ** _ for me.  _

It took him approximately four seconds of looking at his tea to arrive at an even more alarming realization: Crowley had always taken care of him. 

Three days after Armageddon hadn’t begun, Aziraphale was panicking in the living room of Crowley’s flat because the no-longer-demon he’d been in love with for centuries had made him a cup of tea. 

“Angel?” 

Crowley’s voice pulled Aziraphale away from his racing thoughts. When Aziraphale looked over at him, he was lounging against the arm of the sofa with one dark eyebrow raised, coffee cooling in his hand. 

“Sorry,” Aziraphale said. He couldn’t catch his breath, so the word was a whisper. 

“You good?” There was something playing on the telly, but Crowley wasn’t watching it. He was watching Aziraphale, looking him over with beautiful yellow eyes, checking to see what was wrong. 

“Fine,” lied Aziraphale.

Crowley frowned.

“It’s nothing,” Aziraphale said hurriedly. “Nothing. Go back to watching your programme.” 

The eyebrow on Crowley’s forehead climbed further toward his hairline. He flicked his coffee-less hand toward the screen again, and it obligingly went dark. 

“Don’t care about whatever was on,” Crowley said. “You’re not, uh. Not being you.” 

Fuck. 

“I’m perfectly fine, my dear,” Aziraphale insisted, trying very hard to mean it. 

It quickly became clear that this had been the wrong thing to say. Crowley’s black mug joined Aziraphale’s white one on the coffee table, long fingers flexing in a momentary stretch before settling on Crowley’s knee. Crowley was looking at Aziraphale more intently now, heat rising in his gaze. His nostrils flared, and Aziraphale could see the muscles in his jaw contract. 

Fuck, again. More so. Fuck squared. 

“Don’t lie to me, Aziraphale.” A lock of dark hair fell over Crowley’s eye as he leaned forward. “We don’t— look, maybe we used to lie to each other, but I thought that was for work. For protection.” He took a breath, and his body shook ever so slightly. “I guess I didn’t think we’d do that anymore.”

“We won’t,” Aziraphale said. He resisted the urge to reach for Crowley’s hand, opting to lace his own fingers together instead and place them in his lap. 

Crowley snorted out a mirthless laugh. “We won’t? Starting when? After this conversation? Tomorrow? Next week? Next bloody decade?” 

Aziraphale had always been good at plucking at Crowley’s nerves. Riling him up, getting him to engage in a sort of banter that was a bit more biting than usual. Crowley had always done the same to him — it was part of their friendship. Making Crowley truly  _ angry, _ though, was something Aziraphale had done so infrequently that he could probably count the occasions on one hand, and right now was one of those occasions. 

So Aziraphale said, “Tea,” and nodded in the direction of the coffee table.

“What?” 

“You made me tea.” Aziraphale swallowed hard and looked down at his hands, waiting for Crowley to explain himself. 

“What are you on about?” There was an edge to Crowley’s tone still, but it was irritation more than anger. “I’ve made you tea before, surely.” 

Aziraphale’s head snapped back up at that. 

“You bloody well haven’t,” he said. 

Crowley shook his head, already talking. “Must have. I mean, Satan’s sake, you’ve been drinking tea for… what, probably five thousand years? You were drinking it as soon as the humans discovered the stuff.” 

Aziraphale felt faint. Evidently, Crowley had been paying attention to his tea-drinking habits long before he’d taken a liking to Darjeeling (with a splash of cream and two teaspoons of sugar) a few years prior. 

“You’ve never made me tea,” Aziraphale said. “I’m certain of it. I’ve probably helped you make your way through a few thousand bottles of alcoholic beverages over the years, but it’s never been tea.” 

Yellow eyes got wider, and Crowley made a noise that sounded alarmingly like a garbage disposal before falling silent. 

“I’ve never even told you what kind I like,” Aziraphale forced himself to say, and Crowley made the sound again. “Or how I take it.”

Crowley kept staring, and Aziraphale had the sneaking suspicion that he’d forgotten how to blink. 

After a few moments of strained silence, Crowley said, “Ah.” 

Aziraphale made the executive decision that it was now  _ his  _ turn to be angry. 

“‘Ah?’ What sort of an answer is that?” 

“You didn’t—” Crowley flapped his hands in vague circular motions before burying one of them in his hair and tugging at it. “—You didn’t ask a bloody question!” 

“Why did you make me tea, Crowley?” Aziraphale asked. The words sounded red, and Crowley flinched. 

“Because you drink tea in the afternoons.” 

Aziraphale had known that this was the reason, but it did something strange to his heart to hear it confirmed. 

“Oh,” he said. 

With a low growl, Crowley jabbed a finger in the direction of the mugs on the table. 

“You drink tea between three and three-thirty in the afternoon. The only time you don’t is if you’ve had your nose in a book long enough to forget to make it, and I can always tell when that happens because you’re tetchy with me later.” Crowley’s chest was heaving. “Sometimes you have biscuits with it, and sometimes you don’t. Depends on your mood, which is why I didn’t bring any over when I brought the tea. Thought I’d ask if you wanted some.” 

“Oh,” Aziraphale said again, and Crowley made a sound that was only slightly too human to be a snake’s hiss. 

“In the nineties, you went for Earl Grey. Made it sweeter than you have your Darjeeling. Before that, you had a few years where the hot-leaf-water of choice was chai. I liked that phase — you always smelled like spices.” 

Aziraphale’s brain had less than no idea what to make of  _ that  _ statement, so it decided to stop having ideas altogether. His jaw fell open of its own accord and a tiny whimper slipped past his lips, but Crowley gave no indication that he’d noticed this. 

“I could give you a damn color-coded timeline of which teas you drank when, Aziraphale. There’d be gaps, of course, because we used to see much less of each other back before the Arrangement, but. Could do it. I don’t know if I’d be quite as accurate with your favorite foods, because I’ve known you for six thousand years and I’m  _ still  _ not sure if you’re even able to pick foods that earn that qualifier, but I could give it a go.” 

“Crowley,” Aziraphale finally managed to choke out, but Crowley silenced him again with a sharp look. 

“I can tell you which books you reread most often. I know that you like the snuffbox with the racing horses on it better than the others. I can tell you what kind of nightcap you’d like based on nothing but what you tell me about the day you had.” Crowley was practically panting now, but he kept on. “You’re my best friend, you idiot. You’ve saved my life, and I’ve saved yours. I know you like the back of my own bleeding hand, and I’m pretty sure you know me like the back of yours, so why the Heaven are you so concerned about a cup of bloody tea?” 

“I didn’t… I didn’t know,” Aziraphale said lamely. 

“You didn’t know,” Crowley repeated. His voice was flat, practically a straight line. “What didn’t you know?” 

“That you’d noticed. That you’ve  _ been  _ noticing.” Both of Crowley’s eyebrows pushed crinkles into his forehead. “For, for thousands of years, you’ve been noticing things. The things I like best,  _ all  _ of the things I like best — you know what they are.” 

“It isn’t like you’re an enigma, angel,” Crowley snapped. “All I’ve had to do is just… just watch you do things. See what kinds of things make you smile. ‘S not a chore.” 

“I didn’t realize that you  _ cared _ ,” Aziraphale practically shouted, and Crowley folded in on himself like he’d been punched in the gut. 

“Wh— how?” Crowley, for the first time in as long as Aziraphale had known him, sounded small. “How could you not know?” 

“You’re so casual about things, Crowley,” Aziraphale said, shifting his hands underneath his thighs to stop himself reaching for Crowley. It wouldn’t do to cross yet another line, to hurt Crowley even more. They’d held hands at the airfield, but the world had been ending. There had been an excuse. “You’re very cool. Very suave, all put together and modern and interested in all the newfangled things. And I’m…” Aziraphale searched for a word that was anything close to flattering and came up empty. “...boring. I’ve liked the same things for thousands of years, with the only variations coming in the specifics. Darjeeling rather than Earl Grey, but still tea. Horses rather than leaves, but still snuffboxes. Austen rather than Bronte, but still the same sort of literature. Scotch rather than gin, but still liquor.” 

“You’re not boring, Aziraphale.” Crowley’s fingers were twitching on top of his knees, flexing out and curling back in. “You’re not. You like what you like.” 

“Yes,” Aziraphale agreed. “And I’m quite content to be as I am. But you’re not like me, do you understand? You like what you like, too, but those things don’t coincide with me.” 

“They  _ do, _ ” Crowley insisted, eyes wide and pleading. 

“You like expensive watches and driving too fast in your luxury automobile and tight-fitting clothing that changes with the times.” Aziraphale wasn’t even sure what they were arguing about anymore, but they were certainly arguing, and he’d be damned if he was going to give in first. “You change your haircut whenever you feel like it, and I’ve lost track of how many different pairs of sunglasses you own. You listen to bebop and collect shiny new appliances and have an affinity for gardening that I must admit I really don’t understand. You like flashy things, Crowley, and I am certainly not one.” 

Crowley looked like he wanted to bash his head against the nearest flat surface, which was a few hundred different shades of baffling. When he spoke again, his words were slower than dripping tar. 

“You think that I haven’t taken notice of the things you like because they’re different from the things I like?”

“Well,” said Aziraphale, “yes.” 

The silence that stretched after that affirmation was dark and sticky. It coated everything, clung to Crowley’s hair and worked itself into the gaps between Aziraphale’s fingers. Aziraphale waited for Crowley to break it, certain that his friend would say something sooner or later, but Crowley simply sat like a block of stone and didn’t so much as open his mouth. 

The horrible quiet dragged on and on, and the feeling that something was very  _ very  _ wrong grew increasingly stronger in Aziraphale’s gut. He was clearly going to have to be the one to speak first, so he did. 

“I suppose I was wrong, though.”

Crowley grunted. It sounded like it hurt. 

“I’m sorry,” Aziraphale said, changing tack in order to illicit some sort of verbal response.

Crowley merely shrugged and offered a huff of air that might have counted as a laugh in a different scenario. 

So Aziraphale straightened his bowtie and said, “Thank you for the tea, Crowley,” and  _ that  _ was what did it. 

“Would you shut up about the stupid tea?” Crowley snarled. “Look, I promise I’ll never make you tea again, okay? My bad. I’ll keep myself to myself from now on, would that be good? Stick to my gadgets and my ‘tight-fitting clothing’ and my Bentley and leave you alone.”

Aziraphale blanched. 

“No,” he said, and this time he couldn’t stop himself from lunging across the sofa and setting his hand on top of Crowley’s. “Please, no. Don’t— don’t leave me alone. I don’t want you to.” 

If Crowley hadn’t already been sitting still, he would have begun. As it was, he merely went as stiff as a corpse, his entire body losing any remaining measure of its normal flexibility. 

“What are you…” Crowley trailed off, but his eyes were locked on Aziraphale’s hand, so Aziraphale knew exactly what he was asking. 

Fuck to the third power. 

“I’m terribly sorry, my dear,” Aziraphale said, trying desperately not to let the newly-present grief in his chest bleed into his voice. Crowley didn’t want this, didn’t want anything more than an extended and overbearing-bosses-free version of the Arrangement.  _ You’re my best friend,  _ Crowley had said. Nothing more. 

He moved to draw his hand back, and Crowley sprung back into motion as suddenly as he’d fallen out of it. Thin fingers encircled Aziraphale’s wrist, clamping down. Crowley was holding Aziraphale’s hand in place with his own, keeping their skin pressed together. 

“Keep, uh. Keep that there. If you want, y’know. I don’t mind.” Crowley was looking Aziraphale directly in the eye, and Aziraphale saw something that might have been hope and might have been fear hiding behind his slitted pupils. 

Aziraphale tried for an apology again, because one was certainly owed. 

“I’m sorry, Crowley. I’m so very sorry. I suppose I just assumed your interests lay elsewhere, and I never bothered to hope that I would register on that scale.” 

“‘S okay, angel,” Crowley said. 

“No, it’s not,” Aziraphale said. “You have always been so good to me, Crowley, and I haven’t returned the favor nearly so much as I ought.” 

The tips of Crowley’s ears went an alarmingly adorable shade of red, and Aziraphale shifted his hand so that his wide fingers lay in the spaces between Crowley’s long ones. 

“Ngh,” said Crowley. 

“I have been a complete and utter fool, I think,” Aziraphale continued.

“A bit.” 

Aziraphale stubbornly refused to let himself hope that the depth of Crowley’s care for him went anywhere past the platonic.  _ Best friend,  _ he told himself even as Crowley locked their fingers together.  _ Best friend.  _

“I am more than happy to be what you say I am, Crowley: your best friend.” The corner of Crowley’s mouth turned down, so Aziraphale pushed ahead. “And I certainly hope that you know… well, that you know that you are mine as well.” 

“Oh,” Crowley said. 

“There isn’t anyone I’d rather spend time with, if I’m being perfectly honest.” 

“Oh.” 

“In fact,” Aziraphale said, summoning up the remainder of his courage, “I’d like to spend as much time with you as we can manage, if you’re willing. I’m sure you’d like some time apart from me on occasion, everyone need—” 

“No,” Crowley interrupted with a shake of his head. “No, I wouldn’t.” 

“Really?” 

“Really.” 

“Well then.” Aziraphale wiggled slightly in his seat and sat up straighter. Stuck a smile on his face, squeezed Crowley’s hand. “Jolly good.” 

Crowley was starting to smile now, too, and he gave Aziraphale’s hand a squeeze in return. “Brilliant, yeah. Good. Suppose I should move to the bookshop, shouldn’t I? Best way to do things, I think.” 

“Rather,” Aziraphale said faintly, wondering how they’d gotten to the topic of moving in together but deciding against asking that particular question. 

“And we should talk about this, too—” Crowley lifted their joined hands into the air “—because, look, I don’t want to do anything you’re not comfortable with, and I’ve got some preferences of my own.” 

Aziraphale nearly choked on his tongue. 

“Sorry,” he said, “talk about what?” 

“Us,” said Crowley, and this time, Aziraphale  _ did  _ choke. 

“What?” 

“Like, see, I want to kiss you,” Crowley said, and Aziraphale was convinced that he must have fallen off of the sofa and hit his head. “But I’m not big on tongues? Mine’s a bit weird, not great for sticking in other people’s mouths. And I’m not sure how great I’ll be at cuddling — big bag of bones, me — but that seems like something you’d like to do, so I’d be more than happy to give it a go.” 

“Crowley,” Aziraphale said sharply, “what the ever-loving fuck are you talking about?” 

In an instant, Crowley’s face became the grand stage for a complicated play of emotions. Confusion came first; it danced across his lips as recognition sent spots of red onto the tops of his high cheekbones. Panic bloomed in his eyes, and his mouth dropped open with the stuttering sounds of regret. 

“Do you not…” Crowley was frantic now, his hand shaking in Aziraphale’s. “Oh, gosh. You didn’t say— you didn’t say that you. That you want. You didn’t say, did you?” 

Aziraphale had never truly had what the humans might call a ‘lightbulb moment’ before today, but nonetheless he found himself in the midst of a second grand realization. It was rather wonderfully timed, as it happened, and it was delightfully short. Six words long, in fact. 

_ Crowley is in love with me.  _

Of course Crowley wouldn’t say it out loud. He didn’t need to. He’d been showing Aziraphale that he loved him for as far back as Aziraphale could remember, and it was only Aziraphale’s own thick-headedness (and possibly, a small voice in the back of Aziraphale’s mind suggested, a slight inclination toward the dark romance that was centuries of pining for an unrequited love) that had gotten in the way of that fact being recognized. 

There was a strong part of Aziraphale that wanted to get up on the coffee table and try his hand at an ecstatic jig, but his more rational parts informed him that now might not be the time for such an endeavor. Aziraphale elected to stop Crowley’s anxiety before it blew a hole in the roof, which he did with a sentence that was one word shorter than his epiphany. 

“I’m in love with you,” Aziraphale said, and Crowley made a gurgling sound in the back of his throat. “Terribly sorry that I hadn’t said.” 

“Guh,” said Crowley. 

“And I  _ would  _ like to cuddle with you.” 

“Hmng.” 

When Crowley had said that Aziraphale was enough of a bastard to be worth liking, he hadn’t been breaking any news. Anyone who’d met Aziraphale would have known this. Conveniently, Aziraphale himself also knew this, and he chose this moment to put that knowledge to use. 

“Oh,” Aziraphale said, unable to stop himself from looking quite smug, “and I’d like to kiss you. It’s perfectly alright with me if we keep our tongues to ourselves.”

Crowley, being at heart just a little bit a good person, really had no choice to fulfill that particular wish in very short order. 

“You,” Crowley said when he’d finished making Aziraphale lose his breath, “are going to kill me someday.” 

“You’re being dramatic, darling.” 

Crowley whimpered.

“I truly am sorry for being so terribly thick,” Aziraphale said. “This shouldn’t have been this hard.” 

“I bloody thought you  _ knew, _ ” Crowley muttered into the side of Aziraphale’s neck. “Thought I was being obvious.” 

“Whenever did you develop that impression?” 

“1793,” Crowley said. 

Aziraphale blinked at the ceiling. “Ah.” 

“1941.” 

“Well.” 

“Most of the past eleven years, really.” 

“Hush,” Aziraphale said, and Crowley laughed. 

They sat in a silence that was much nicer than any that had come before. It was soft and sweet and broken up by the sound of Crowley making tiny contented humming noises that settled in Aziraphale’s heart. 

And then Crowley said, “Gosh, Aziraphale,” and did some wiggling of his own (slithering, more like) to enable him to meet Aziraphale’s eyes. 

“Didn’t say it back,” he said. “Sorry. Damn. ‘M in love with you, angel.” 

Crowley’s flat filled with white light in a flash that quickly spread to every corner and crevice. 

“Ouch,” said Crowley. 

“So sorry,” Aziraphale said, banishing his halo back to another plane. “That hasn’t happened before.” 

A smirk stretched across Crowley’s lips. 

“D’you think if I said it again, it’d come back?” 

“Don’t you  _ dare. _ ” 

Crowley snickered. “Oh, I like this.” 

“Stop liking it,” Aziraphale said snippily. “It won’t happen again.” 

With an exaggerated sigh, Crowley snuggled back against Aziraphale’s side. He twirled a finger in the direction of their forgotten cups, and steam obligingly began to curl upward from both. 

“Pass my coffee, would you?” Crowley asked. 

Aziraphale did, retrieving his tea while he was at it. Crowley took a gulp of his drink and pressed a wet kiss to Aziraphale’s cheek, and Aziraphale thought that he might never be so happy again. 

His tea was perfect, but that was no surprise at all.

**Author's Note:**

> Come hang out with me on [Tumblr!](https://hope-inthedark.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Also, if you would like to make any sort of creative work (art, podfic, whatever) based on this or any of my stories, consider this blanket permission to do so! I only ask that you would tag me in your work so that I can see it and share it! Thank you for being here, and thank you for reading. I hope you are having the best day!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[podfic] Dar(jee)ling - hope_in_the_dark](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24537676) by [spinner_of_yarns](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spinner_of_yarns/pseuds/spinner_of_yarns)




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